1st Edition

Polarimetric Radar Imaging From Basics to Applications

By Jong-Sen Lee, Eric Pottier Copyright 2009
    422 Pages 197 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    The recent launches of three fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) satellites have shown that polarimetric radar imaging can provide abundant data on the Earth’s environment, such as biomass and forest height estimation, snow cover mapping, glacier monitoring, and damage assessment. Written by two of the most recognized leaders in this field, Polarimetric Radar Imaging: From Basics to Applications presents polarimetric radar imaging and processing techniques and shows how to develop remote sensing applications using PolSAR imaging radar.

    The book provides a substantial and balanced introduction to the basic theory and advanced concepts of polarimetric scattering mechanisms, speckle statistics and speckle filtering, polarimetric information analysis and extraction techniques, and applications typical to radar polarimetric remote sensing. It explains the importance of wave polarization theory and the speckle phenomenon in the information retrieval problem of microwave imaging and inverse scattering. The authors demonstrate how to devise intelligent information extraction algorithms for remote sensing applications. They also describe more advanced polarimetric analysis techniques for polarimetric target decompositions, polarization orientation effects, polarimetric scattering modeling, speckle filtering, terrain and forest classification, manmade target analysis, and PolSAR interferometry.

    With sample PolSAR data sets and software available for download, this self-contained, hands-on book encourages you to analyze space-borne and airborne PolSAR and polarimetric interferometric SAR (Pol-InSAR) data and then develop applications using this data.

    Overview of Polarimetric Radar Imaging

    Brief History of Polarimetric Radar Imaging

    SAR Image Formation: Summary

    Airborne and Space-Borne PolSAR Systems

    Description of the Remaining Chapters

    Electromagnetic Vector Wave and Polarization Descriptors

    Monochromatic Electromagnetic Plane Wave

    Polarization Ellipse

    Jones Vector

    Stokes Vector

    Wave Covariance Matrix

    Electromagnetic Vector Scattering Operators

    Polarimetric Back Scattering Sinclair S Matrix

    Scattering Target Vectors k and Omega

    Polarimetric Coherency T and Covariance C Matrices

    Polarimetric Mueller M and Kennaugh K Matrices

    Change of Polarimetric Basis

    Target Polarimetric Characterization

    PolSAR Speckle Statistics

    Fundamental Property of Speckle in SAR Images

    Speckle Statistics for Multilook-Processed SAR Images

    Texture Model and K Distribution

    Effect of Speckle Spatial Correlation

    Polarimetric and Interferometric SAR Speckle Statistics

    Phase Difference Distributions of Single-Look and Multilook PolSAR Data

    Multilook Product Distribution

    Joint Distribution of Multilook Si2 and Sj2

    Multilook Intensity and Amplitude Ratio Distributions

    Verifications of Multilook PDFs

    K Distribution for Multilook Polarimetric Data

    Summary

    Appendices

    PolSAR Speckle Filtering

    Introduction to Speckle Filtering of SAR Imagery

    Filtering of Single Polarization SAR Data

    Review of Multipolarization Speckle Filtering Algorithms

    PolSAR Speckle Filtering

    Scattering Model-Based PolSAR Speckle Filter

    Introduction to the Polarimetric Target Decomposition Concept

    Introduction

    Dichotomy of the Kennaugh Matrix K

    Eigenvector-Based Decompositions

    Model-Based Decompositions

    Coherent Decompositions

    The H/A/a Polarimetric Decomposition Theorem

    Introduction

    Pure Target Case

    Probabilistic Model for Random Media Scattering

    Roll Invariance Property

    Polarimetric Scattering a Parameter

    Polarimetric Scattering Entropy (H)

    Polarimetric Scattering Anisotropy (A)

    Three-Dimensional H/A/a Classification Space

    New Eigenvalue-Based Parameters

    Speckle Filtering Effects on H/A/a

    PolSAR Terrain and Land-Use Classification

    Introduction

    Maximum Likelihood Classifier Based on Complex Gaussian Distribution

    Complex Wishart Classifier for Multilook PolSAR Data

    Characteristics of Wishart Distance Measure

    Supervised Classification Using Wishart Distance Measure

    Unsupervised Classification Based on Scattering Mechanisms and Wishart Classifier

    Scattering Model-Based Unsupervised Classification

    Quantitative Comparison of Classification Capability: Fully PolSAR versus Dual- and Single-Polarization SAR

    Pol-InSAR Forest Mapping and Classification

    Introduction

    Pol-InSAR Scattering Descriptors

    Forest Mapping and Forest Classification

    Appendix

    Selected PolSAR Applications

    Polarimetric Signature Analysis of Manmade Structures

    Polarization Orientation Angle Estimation and Applications

    Ocean Surface Remote Sensing with PolSAR

    Ionosphere Faraday Rotation Estimation

    PolSAR Interferometry for Forest Height Estimation

    Nonstationary Natural Media Analysis from PolSAR Data Using a Two-Dimensional Time-Frequency Approach

    Appendix A: Eigen Characteristics of Hermitian Matrix

    Appendix B: PolSARpro Software: The Polariemtric SAR Data Processing and Educational Toolbox

    Index

    Biography

    Lee, Jong-Sen; Pottier, Eric

    "… This very concise book covering basics to applications will serve as a fundamental hands-on book for years to come. … we congratulate the authors for their diligence, oversight, and sincere dedication for assembling such a well-organized and long overdue book on the basics and applications of polarimetric radar imaging. …"
    —Wolfgang-Martin Boerner, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA